Efforts to control cryptocurrency may be doomed to failure but the reason would be because a critical mass of rich and powerful people own them and thus will no

Efforts to control cryptocurrency may be doomed to failure but the reason would be because a critical mass of rich and powerful people own them and thus will not allow them to be de-valued. Your reasoning that it's "the maths" that makes crypto unassailable shows a lack of understanding of how governments exercise power and control. The law does not care about your worldview and geeky conception of the abstract mathematical nature of cryptography—and guess what—they don't have to: it's purely a question of enforceability. The different between encryption and cryptocurrency is that the former cannot be targeted, but the latter can. Consider the purpose of encryption: to make communication between 2 or more individuals private. This can happen in many different ways, from whispering in ones ear, to using postcards w/ one-time pads. It can't be regulated because there's no stable target, any group of people that needs privacy can rig up their own scheme independent of all others and change it as necessary. The value they derive is directly from the privacy and depends unqiuely on each situation. The only way for a government to defeat this is through oppressive totalitarianism with direct threat of violence and imprisonment. Cryptocurrency on the other hand has no direct utility other than its monetary value, and that monetary value is a direct function of the global belief in that value. It would be exceedingly easy for a government to make a specific cryptocurrency illegal because the mechanisms are concrete and public—you can't just swap out the maths for a new implementation. In other words governments can outlaw and devalue cryptocurrencies faster than you can establish and build trust in them. Not that I think this will happen in practice because governments are already taxing cryptocurrency and riding that gravy train as well. But the fact that they are able to tax it is clear evidence that cryptocurrency is not in fact above the law.